afar

Hell, I think the Mackems could even grab a couple against that back line, it's dreadful, surely Wenger won't stick with it all season.

Wow Leicester more than decent, Arsenal can't defend for toffee.

Vardy should have done better there.

That Harry Maguire looks as stiff as any footballer I've seen, yet has brought the ball out pretty effectively on the whole.

Both sides strong suits aren't going to be defending, awful from that perspective but great game to watch.

If it hits your arm when it's over your head, it's a pen, don't care how close you are to the ball.

Stonewall penalty that like

Leicester could have a good season, looking at them in the first 30 here, certainly much better than last season.

Arsenal look pathetic at the back tbh.

Agree. Krul's dead, the Elliott hate is weirder than the Colback hate. All based on shagging off a player who didn't bother his arse in training. Ideally we'd be bringing in a proper replacement, but fat c*** tells us we're skint. Not at all, it's based on seeing him "perform" in goal for us too bloody often. He's a poor keeper and certainly not PL quality, yet he's now our number 1.

Clearly we need to be sold as soon as possible, it's getting to the point where it is the only realistic hope we have of hanging onto Rafa and therefore having a team we can enjoy getting behind. If things remain as they are with the owner, Rafa may not see out the season.

Have you seen the competition he's up against, it's far from stellar, refuse to believe Krul has fallen so far, he failed at Ajax because he started the season still injured and the stand in took his chance to shine, he wasn't a complete disaster of Twente from all accounts. Anyway since we are discarding him, not sure what Rafa sees in Elliot above Darlow, I would even give Woodman a chance ahead of this guy. He was a disaster at AZ though, the club he was playing for. So my point was true he wasn't a disaster for Twente Seriously though, that AZ loan was not as bad as you are making out.

Have you seen the competition he's up against, it's far from stellar, refuse to believe Krul has fallen so far, he failed at Ajax because he started the season still injured and the stand in took his chance to shine, he wasn't a complete disaster of Twente from all accounts. Anyway since we are discarding him, not sure what Rafa sees in Elliot above Darlow, I would even give Woodman a chance ahead of this guy.

I tend to agree, he's still our best keeper, not sure what he's done or said behind the scenes but clearly fallen out with Rafa. It doesn't make a lot of sense, if we just included him in the squad, that would allow Woodman to go out on loan, which he desperately needs for his development.

Exactly, hope one of these interviewers gets that point over, but I doubt it.

Nice for them to have a little distraction: http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40901082

I'm not sure why they do it ? The odd mackem we have on here, stray mackem and hithere, post mostly intelligent balanced stuff. I don't know whether they do it for effect or actually believe the s*** they post, but when it comes to us, on that forum it's just ridiculously biased, blinkered, uneducated and down right lies. What are they trying to gain, exactly ? An example of the crap they continue to spout, sdo they really believe it ?:

Butland, Indi, Shawcross and Zouma with Pieters or better and Johnson as wing-backs could be very good. It's a very solid backline, that's for sure, clearly will be their strength, pressure is on Hughes though this season, think their fans are getting a little impatient.

http://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/secondary/Abbott-948619.jpg LOL, I'm blaming auto correct, having said that, that pairing you suggest may have worked a lot better

Reading those responses, clearly there is some truth to the original story, his absence in the final pre-season games was telling. I think Rafa took note of how poor we looked against Mainz, which was largely down to a central midfield of him and Diane. He said he was part of the squad not part of the 25.

The worry is though, he's had zero minutes of match practice in the last two or three pre-season games, got to think he's going to start with Mitro, which will hurt us, but trying to be positive Mitro had probably his best game for us the last time we met, up until of course the sending off, he was bullying their back line.

He's making an excellent point, which a lot of these pundits and even our own fans are overlooking. This is a much more together group of players than we had in our previous PL campaign, where we have to remember we only just went down. They respect and play for their manager, something that was not evident when we had the likes of Pardew, Carver and McClaren running the show, that has a big bearing on how we will perform as a team.

Improved or played in a lower division? That's where some of our fans need to think twice before getting ahead of themselves. WTF man. Who is getting ahead of himself ? Are you suggesting that Rafa influence on the players is non existent ? Then why are we all clamouring for him to not leave ? Are you seriously telling me that Clark is not a better player now than he was before he joined us ? Or that Shelvey is still the same player he was when he left Swansea ? The point I was making was that these so called pundits know f*** all about our squad and are basing their views on their hazy memories of a year or two, because they live in a PL bubble, they may be proved right in the end and these players never improved but they are talking from positions of no education. Stop with the considending s*** and use some reading comprehension before mouthing off next time. Never recall saying Rafa has had a non existent influence. I was referring to the point you were making about the perception of our players. Clark. Can't judge yet other than say he looked better in a poorer league. Shelvey. Exactly the same player as he was at Swansea with same strengths and weaknesses. My point about fans getting carried away was originally was directed in a broader but after reading your response then yes it also now includes you Calm down You're a f***ing idiot with zero reading comprehension, how's that for calming down ?

Not defending Ashley at all, but TBF Huddersfield had to do a huge amount more than we did, considering they rented half their team last year and were still way behind Brighton and ourselves.

Carlisle would be nice, I think, we could help them get a bit of a pay day, as long as we go through of course.